Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I'm Clipless!

Given my extraordinarily long history of falling asleep in movies/movie theatres I probably should have not gone to see Hellboy II at 10:15 pm on Sunday night after hiking 12 miles that day. But...I did...and I fell asleep. Like three times. What I saw of the movie was pretty good though, but evidently not good enough to keep me awake the entire time. I knew that running before work on Monday, then biking in probably wouldn't happen unless I wanted to stroll into the office at 9 am so I decided to sleep in until 5:30, then ride in. The ride was glorious! I caffeinated up pretty well in the morning, then hit the river for a 4 mi run over lunch. My calves were sore from the hiking, but since I'm not one to take it easy I opted for a run from the Bow River, up the Centre Street bridge, and up to McHugh Bluff. You gain something like 120 ft over 0.4 mi. The hill felt great, but after running on flat ground at the top my left shin got a bit tender so I stopped to stretch and it was all good for the rest of the run. On my way back down to the river I nearly got taken out by some kid speeding down the hill, on the sidewalk, on his BMX. No bell, no warning... There were no other major incidents and the 4 miler felt pretty good despite those rock hard calves. The bike home was pretty good as well as I tackled the big hill up Home Road and felt a lot stronger going up.

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Once I got home and fed my pup I took the bike off to Bow Cycle to get my new clipless pedals put on. Afterwards I asked one of the guys to see if I need to have any adjustments made to my bike and he talked me through clipping in and out. He raised the seat a bit and otherwise nothing else needed to be tweaked. Interesting...he said that he would have put me on a larger frame. Sheesh, you think that the original fitter would have said something. Given that the guy yesterday was just holding on to my bike and letting me spin backwards rather than setting it up in the trainer to watch me I'm hoping he was slightly off in his assessment. I guess the good news is my bike is pretty comfortable to ride so I'm not too worried that I bought the wrong bike... When I got home I spun some laps around my townhome complex and practiced clipping in and out and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. We'll see what happens when I take it out on a real ride!

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And in case you missed it, I added in a shot of me trying my hand at the chain ladder on my hike on Sunday at the end of the post below. Scroll down to check it out!

I fell once. At a four way stop. With a line of cars at each of the four-ways. I actually unclipped my right foot, then lost momentum and tipped over to the left. I hope you are one of the few lucky ones who never has a clipless fall!

Glad to hear the clips went on without major incident. See? It's easier than it looks! Now other commuters will shake in their tennis shoes when they hear you clipping in behind them at traffic lights. And bigger bikes weigh more, which you will find very important when you come into your own as a tri geek (probably sometime next summer).